Spray And Pray: The Cheapest Way To Invest In Real Estate

Recently, I got blown out of the water by an all cash buyer for one sweet property in the Sunset District. The asking price was $1.2 million, the median home price in San Francisco, and I offered $1.38 million. Given the agent representing me was the son of the listing agent (!), he gave me the inside scoop that $1.38 million wouldn’t cut it because the pole position offer was at $1.8 million! Although part of me thought he was just talking bullshit, I raised my offer to $1.5 million, hoping that the first place offer would drop out.

At the time, I thought to myself, what kind of crazy idiot would offer 50% over asking on a block where the next highest priced home was $1.4 million max? It turns out that his $1.8 million offer went through. Not only that, he proceeded to gut the house and spend another $250,000+ remodeling!

For a month I was feeling a little melancholy because I envisioned myself spending the next 5-10 years of my life in the home. You start thinking about what type of art you’ll put up on the walls, and which room is for whom. The house was in great condition as is. Buying property can get pretty emotional.

Still getting over my loss, I stumbled across another sweet property in Golden Gate Heights, a nicer neighborhood with more expansive ocean views. The asking price was $1.35 million for this 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 2,300 sqft house. It had two great decks, but the views were partially blocked by a massive pine tree out back.

The property was swarming with perspective buyers when I visited. Figuring I had no chance in hell to win, I didn’t even bother putting in an offer this time. I guessed it would easily go for at least $1.7 million if the other house went for $1.8 million. And I hadn’t sold enough books to have $1.7 million lying around.

The house went into contract in two weeks, and after a month of waiting, I found out the selling price was only $1.48 million! Holy crap! It went for $220,000 under what I thought it would sell for. Now I was even more dejected.

WHAT HAPPENED?

I called the selling agent to ask how the competitive bidding situation was. She told me that they received three offers, four less than anticipated. What happened was that everybody else thought the house would go crazy over asking so they didn’t bother to submit.

The situation is analogous to never asking out an attractive somebody or a very important person for help. Since everybody thinks they’ll get rejected, nobody ever tries.

This situation really got me thinking about the “Spray and Pray” investing methodology where you just invest in a whole bunch of startups, hoping that one will hit and make you stinking rich. This strategy worked for angel investors like Ron Conway, who is now worth over $2 billion dollars.

The difference here is that the Spray and Pray strategy in real estate investing requires NO CAPITAL COMMITMENT! All you’ve got to do is fill out some forms. If your offer is accepted, you usually only pay a 3% earnest money deposit. Furthermore, you always have at least 24 hours to change your mind.

THANK GOODNESS FOR DOCUSIGN

In 1997, two things didn’t exist: 1) An online version of the common application for college and 2) DocuSign.

Once an online version of the common application became available, hundreds of universities began signing up. And once hundreds of universities signed up, high school students started applying to many more schools. All they had to do was check boxes to where their application would be sent instead of spending hours creating a new application for each school like I did in 1994.

High school students sprayed and prayed! And I bet some students got into better schools than expected.

So what is the downside to the common app? Many more applications to sift through by admissions officers, lower college acceptance rates, and more application fees to spend. The upside far outweighed the downside for applicants.

If you have never experienced DocuSign, you’re in for a treat because you no longer have to print, fax, and physically sign any documents. All you’ve got to do is press some keys after you’ve scribbled your signature with a mouse or finger, and you’re good to go!

What used to take 24 hours to submit a bid, now takes me literally one minute on my mobile phone or laptop to sign a eight page offer.

If you’re looking to buy property in a competitive environment, you might as well bid on as many properties as possible with a low offer price, even if you don’t think you have a chance because your cost is next to nothing.

TIME TO BUY ANOTHER PROPERTY

After buying my fixer in the summer of 2014, I promised not to buy another piece of property for at least five more years. It’s taken a year to fix up the kitchen, floors, both bathrooms, roof, and garage, and I’ve still probably got another six months to go if I want to build a couple decks, change the windows, and landscape due to the long permit process.

But of course, I can’t resist looking around at neighborhood comps for buying opportunities or validation I didn’t overpay during the meantime. After looking high and low for the next great property, I finally found a gem in my neighborhood for an incredibly attractive price.

Underpriced house. Time to spray and pray

Here’s a 1,550 square foot, two bedroom, two bathroom, fixer with a garage, small deck, and partial ocean views on a decent 3,271 square foot lot. The downstairs is another 900 square feet that’s unwarranted, but can easily be converted to legitimate living space consisting of a third bedroom and bathroom.

Property for this area with this quality view sells for around $800 a square foot in good, not excellent condition. In other words, we’re talking about $1,900,000 if we include the entire 2,400 square feet of space.

The property needs about $350,000 in fixing as the pest report indicated a cost of $80,000 alone. We’re talking new windows, new bathrooms, new kitchen, rewiring, new plumbing, permits, roof, paint, foundation, electric garage door opener, and refinishing the floors. All this work will probably take one to two years to complete. Hence, if you were willing to work for free, you’d be willing to pay up to $1,550,000 for a brand new house given the $350,000 cost.

The amazing thing about this property is that the seller is only asking $899,000! Clearly, this is a low ball asking price to get tons of people interested. But the risk of pricing so low is that it becomes mind-boggling difficult for buyers to bid 70% over asking ($700,000) to get to my perceived maximum fair value of $1,550,000.

The second risk of pricing so low is that fewer people will bid because everybody will think they have no chance of winning. We’ve seen this story before as was the case with the Golden Gate Heights property I thought was going to sell for $1.7M+, but only ended up at $1.47M.

Given the details I’ve provided, I’d like you to now guess what the house will actually sell for in this poll below. I’ll find out the sales price by September 1 and report back in this post. Pretend you are a homebuyer. What offer would you submit?

How much do you think this 2,400 fixer in Golden Gate Heights, San Francisco that needs ~$350,000 sells for?

Below the asking price of $899,000

The asking price of $899,000

$1,000,000

$1,100,000

$1,200,000 = the level I bid, hoping with a 5% chance it gets accepted

$1,300,000

$1,350,000

$1,400,000

$1,450,000

$1,500,000

$1,550,000 = the number I think is the max price to pay if you are willing to spend 1-2 years and $350,000 remodeling

EVENTUALLY YOU MIGHT GET LUCKY

Maybe there’s only a 5% chance they’ll accept my $1,200,000 offer for the property above, but if they do, I’m hundreds of thousands of dollars in the money for one minute worth of work. I’ll remodel the place with my crew and attempt to sell it within 18 months for a $200,000 – $500,000 gross profit.

And if my chance of winning is really only 5%, all I’ve got to do is submit 20 low ball offers to potentially win. This is the same attitude I’ve taken with applying to various accelerators and incubators for a startup idea I have in mind.

It is very easy to overbid in a hot property market. Emotions run high and you just want to crush your competition because you’re sick of losing. But if the market ever turns, and you don’t have enough liquidity to hold you through, your finances will get crushed. Please be careful!

Spraying and praying is the only way someone will ever get a deal in a hot property market. I strongly suggest underbidding on properties and going after “stale fishes” instead. You don’t want to be left holding the bag.

Note: The words “bid” and “offer” are used interchangeably in real estate. But if you are buying and selling in the stock market, it’s a little different. “Hitting the bid” means one broker is agreeing to sell a given security at another broker’s bid price. From the buyers point of view, he is hitting someone else’s bid. If you are the other broker who buys the security, you are “lifting the offer.” Confusing, yes I know.

Recommendations

Explore real estate crowdsourcing opportunities: If you don’t have the downpayment to buy a property, don’t want to deal with the hassle of managing real estate, or don’t want to tie up your liquidity in physical real estate, take a look at Fundrise, one of the largest real estate crowdsourcing companies today.

Real estate is a key component of a diversified portfolio. Real estate crowdsourcing allows you to be more flexible in your real estate investments by investing beyond just where you live for the best returns possible. For example, cap rates are around 3% in San Francisco and New York City, but over 10% in the Midwest if you’re looking for strictly investing income returns.

Sign up and take a look at all the residential and commercial investment opportunities around the country Fundrise has to offer. It’s free to look.

Less than 5% of the real estate deals shown gets through the Fundrise funnel

Shop around for a mortgage: Check the latest mortgage rates online through LendingTree. They’ve got one of the largest networks of lenders that compete for your business. Your goal should be to get as many written offers as possible and then use the offers as leverage to get the lowest interest rate possible. This is exactly what I did to lock in a 2.375% 5/1 ARM for my latest refinance. For those looking to purchase property, the same thing is in order. If you’ve found a good deal, can afford the payments, and plan to own the property for 10+ years, I’d get neutral inflation and take advantage of the low rates.

Author Bio: Sam started Financial Samurai in 2009 to help people achieve financial freedom sooner, rather than later. He spent 13 years working in investment banking, earned his MBA from UC Berkeley, and retired at age 34 in San Francisco.

Sam’s favorite free financial tool he’s been using since 2012 to manage his net worth is Personal Capital. Every quarter, Sam runs his investments through their free Retirement Planner and Investment Checkup tool to make sure he stays financially free, forever. It’s free and easy to use.

For investing opportunities in 2019, Sam is most interested in investing in the heartland of America through real estate crowdfunding. Property valuations are much cheaper and net rental yields are much higher. There is a demographic trend towards moving away from higher cost areas of the country to lower cost areas thanks to technology.

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Comments

I’ve never heard of this technique before but it sounds a little like what I did when I was buying my condo in Cambridge, MA three years ago. The market was so tight that everything was going over asking. Each time I saw a place that would work, I put in a bid and crossed my fingers. Ultimately, I got lucky when another buyer’s financing came through and my bid was accepted a month after I put it in. I guess that was where the “praying” part came in!

My wife’s parents inherited a house in the Sunset district back when my wife was still a young girl. They have lived there ever since. I’ve always thought they might be sitting on a gold mine. I just don’t know how much they’ve borrowed against it – I know they have done a cash out refinance a time or two. If we ever inherit it, I sure hope it isn’t mortgaged like hell. I don’t know how much spraying I can do, but I sure am praying it isn’t!

HilARious picture! hahaha! If I were to bid on that house I probably wouldn’t go above 1.1-1.2 because that would be the range I’d feel I got a really good deal, but in the SF market it’s really hard to get a fantastic deal unless you come across a hidden gem that was really poorly marketed.

It’s often crazy competitive and people are always on the prowl so I wouldn’t be surprised if the house goes way, way over asking. Agents in SF always price low because the common practice is to bid above.

But you make a good point that there are also many people who don’t end up bidding at all because they assume they have no chance. Spray and pray is a clever way to look at things especially with docusign.

I could see someone paying 1.4-1.6 for that house but unless they have no desire to fix it up or are lucky enough to be a contractor or have tight connections with someone skilled and available to do the remodeling, I think they are going to end up spending too much.

The real estate market in SF just seems insane to me right now. I know that it has had many booms and busts over the last 30 years. Granted those busts don’t last as long or go as deep as other parts of the country.

There is something in my DNA that does not allow me to buy properties when you are competing for them in bidding wars. I know you are in it for the long haul with real estate and your results have worked well for you. I went for the bottom fishing offer survey option below the $899k asking price.

Why not just save your cash for the next dip? It’s going to happen and you don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of it on a flip. I just saw so many real estate investors lose everything during the last recession that it’s hard for me to wrap my head around a real estate investment that does not provide good yield. This seems more like high stakes poker, even with the spray n’ pray strategy, but who knows?!

I believe the fair market value for this property is ~$1.5 million in current fixer condition. I bid $1.2 million. And very shortly, we’ll see what it actually sells for.

By offering 20% below current fair market value, I’m giving myself a cushion for a 20% fall, which may very well happen.

And to ask your question on saving up cash… that is one of my top 5 goals of 2015. To save as much cash as possible. I’ve got the $1.2M cash given that’s what I bid, but want to get to $1.5M to have more fire power. It’s all relative.

Sounds like you’ve got a good plan, and also SF is a real estate market unto itself. Plus if you have the cash anyway, it’s not like you’re betting on margin or betting even betting the ranch! Good luck with the offers!

I’m not sure what the strategy is here? Once you buy this place are you intending to flip it? Renting certainly does not pencil out. SF housing is well into bubble territory so now is a really bad time to buy. It’s pending so I’m assuming your 1.2MM was not successful. I’d say this goes for around 1.3MM-1.4MM.

Your anecdote is interesting, though. Do you think you might actually be better off bidding closer to asking on slightly higher priced homes? It seems that in this case, the low asking price meant that there was a ton of competition. Or, Golden Gate Heights really just has become the hot new neighborhood!

I do like going after stale fish listings that have been on the market for over 30 days. Clearly, those homes are overpriced and must come down. I also like to bid on homes that price close to market b/c they almost never get the attention as underpriced properties do.

I donno if GGH is the hot new neighborhood. I just think this house was priced so low that it brought out a lot of folks. But maybe after a year of writing the post about GGH being one of the best hidden gems in SF, it’s finally been discovered and I’ve screwed myself of buying up more!

I think my original post was not accepted. Anyway, what’s the strategy here? Renting does not pencil out. Are you intending to flip? 1.2MM is overpaying for this place. It’s pending so I expect 1.3MM -1.4MM. We’re are in serious bubble territory in SF. Proceed with caution!

Yes, the strategy is to remodel over the course of hopefully one year, and flip for a $200,000 – $500,000 profit, which would be highly feasible at a $1.2M purchase. I’ve got all the people who can do the work. I just need to win the place.

This is spray and pray. All about “low balling” a low ball offer to begin with with a 5% hope of winning by spending one minute of my time using Docusign.

This strategy is NOT about paying top dollar. It’s about potentially taking advantage of dislocations which happen.

When do you think the SF bubble will burst? Are you selling or have you sold already?

I’m thinking by this time next year SF housing prices will trend flat or slightly downwards. If you’re gonna flip I’d say you want to get this on the market by May 2016. I also feel 1.2MM is hardly a deal and you would want to expand square footage significantly if you’re targeting a 500K profit.

An acquaintance of mine just sold a comparable home very close by and it sold for approximately 1.25MM.

Just for fun, what are your thoughts with Spray and Pray for stocks? 3x indexes like UWTI, RUSL (3x Russian), GASL(3x Natural Gas), Yinn (3x China), TQQQ, etc. could return similar results to investing in start-ups?

It’s not the same b/c there is capital outlay / risk. For real estate, it’s asymmetric risk/reward. You only have to risk a couple minutes of your time putting in low ball offers thanks to Docusign. For stocks, you’ve got to actually buy the positions and get blown up if the downward trend continues, especially with leveraged ETFs.

I saw that listing come up as well and think sometimes when a house is priced that low, you get people who bid as first time buyers because nothing else is in their range. Cosmetically it doesn’t look so bad from the pictures so could see an owner occupier buying and fixing up slowly, I would expect that person to be willing to pay more upfront so the 1.3 range wouldn’t be too surprising. It is quite a lot of square footage.

Assuming you didn’t get this property, check out Forest Knolls, lots of places have great views and prices for non-remodeled homes are close to the $1m mark. A flip just recently sold at 527 Oak Park Drive for $2.4m, the listing pictures are still up so you can check out what it looks like, but it is a nice neighborhood with lots of older properties that have room to expand.

I dunno Sam, I’d be pretty wary in this environment around flipping any RE right now. However, I think the spray and pray strategy is always great if you’re targeting a cash flowing investment property. That way if the property value drops like a brick it won’t matter a bit as you’d be covered by the rental income and have time to ride out any market swings.

Picking up cash flowing properties is obviously tough in any major CA city, but there are still some opportunities to be found out of state. I used the spray and pray strategy for a few cash flowing homes in Las Vegas back in 2012-2014. It took me on average of a dozen offers before one was accepted, at which point I’d have a quick inspection done and then fly out from San Diego to do my final due diligence. (I typically put 10%-20% down and financed the rest with a 30yr fixed loan. These each yield a couple hundred dollars in monthly cash flow after covering PI&T, PM fees, misc maintenance, vacancy, etc.) I’ll probably sit on these indefinitely.

Although not a spray and pray strategy, have you considered crowd funding RE deals through Realty Shares (or similar sites)? These are the only “flips” I’ll participate in because you can diversify across markets and not commit a huge chunk of your capital to a single investment… plus you don’t have to do the extra rehab work yourself. You can also spread your money between debt and equity deals to add additional diversification.

Sam, always admire your warrior spirit. A thought for your consideration. Let’s take all your numbers with some general assumptions…

$1,550K at a 3.25% 5/1, carrying/opportunity costs to you at $50K/yr, plus Property Tax of $13K on a purchase price of $1,200K. $63K/yr, times 1.5 (18 months) is out-of-pocket $95K. Plus $350K renovations, you are now into $1,640K cost. Sell it for $1,900. Subtract 6% for realtor/escrow/transfer, etc. which is $114K for the privilege of selling it, and you now realize $1,786K from the sale. Gross profit $141K. Pay 33% in taxes, your net is $95K.

That is 5% of your desired selling price. 18 months of work, if it all goes according to plan, for $95K. If it doesn’t go according to plan, and you pay more than 3.25%APR for points/fees/mortgage (didn’t you just get turned down for a loan?), or the construction schedule busts, or the construction budget busts, or you don’t get your desired price, and you have now tied up 18 months of your life and $1,640K at risk in order to possibly make $95K.

Can you manage this project to within 5% of your predicted outcome? What would you be able to make risk-free with $1,640K over 18 months? 1%? 2%? 3%? Subtract that amount from $95K, and do you find this to be a worthwhile endeavor which will only cost 1 minute of your time now, but may cost 18 months or more and put stress on you and those around you?

$1.55M is the MAX I would recommend anybody who is competent to spend on this place due to all the costs you’ve just pointed out. The buyer should have cash, so no 3.5% borrowing rate, and is probably going to be a licensed broker who will only pay a 2.5% commission to the buying agent, if there is one.

Now you know why my offer price was $1.2M cash. I know I won’t win with 95% certainty. But that is the hole concept of “spray and pray.” You spray low ball bids now, one minute at a time, and hope you win.

In real estate, the negotiation price is super important b/c you can never renegotiate after the sale, unlike a loan rate.

I see that now. Although, the commission and c arriving costs are high. We’ll see the final selling price soon. I will happily take it down for )1.2M. My $1.9M sale price may be conservative by a couple Hindi as well.

Am I the only one who thinks that real estate prices in this country are ridiculously high? I mean, comically high to the point of it almost being some sort of parody? I mean, that’s a beautiful house in the picture, but really? Over a million dollars!? I could see a couple hundred grand, but over a million dollars for anything that isn’t a private mansion? I’m sorry, I’m just not seeing it.

Maybe I’m cheap and childish. I never said I wasn’t. But wow, even $899,000 for that house is way too much in my opinion. No wonder we’re all drowning in debt in this country.

I just finished reading that post you linked. I’m not quite sure if you were intending to do so, but you just proved my point. These properties are comically over-expensive. Don’t get me wrong; every one you showed in both posts was absolutely beautiful. But $11 million for a property that doesn’t even have a driveway? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Again, even the property that you showed in this post. Again, beautiful. But I’m not seeing the $1.whatever MILLION in value. I’m not seeing the value that comes with 30 years of debt. Not for what seems like a standard middle class sized house. And it has nothing to do with city vs city. The property prices of what you called “the cheapest international city in the world” still seem ridiculously high to me.

Am I the only one who thinks this? That standard middle class homes should be a couple hundred thousand, not a million and a half? Or am I being a cheap, childish, and entitled Millennial? I’m just not seeing the value here.

Not sure. The price is whatever the market will bear. Prices aren’t dictated by what you want or can afford alone.

Is a Ferrari really worth $250,000 more than a Corvette? Probably not. But people buy it. Often times, there is a huge markup due to the scarcity.

I agree that houses in SF, for example, will go down if the industry no longer pays 22 yo college graduates $100,000 + stock right out of school. These folks make $300,000 + stock easily by age 35. And if two of these guys buy together, then that’s why $1.5 million houses are in high demand. It’s just supply and demand.

Do you currently own or rent? And where?

You’re not seeing the $1.X million in the value of this house. But let’s see what other people see when it finally closes.

Never heard of Realty Shares but just saw yet another informercial selling a course on how to “wholesale homes and have others pay for the renovations – states you never have to do a thing ” what on earth ?!? I sold real estate for 20 years in NJ high end suburb of NYC and never heard of that — but there’s a listing that says “wholesale”

I don’t know that Realty Shares does a good job explaining what they do on their main page, but it’s legit. I’ve participated in a half dozen deals in the past year. However, you do need to be an accredited investor to participate currently.

Prior to crowdfunding, participating in a first position trust deed usually required 6 figures minimum, but with RS you can spread your risk across multiple deals (similar to lending club). Of course you still need to do your own due diligence as all deals are not created equal.

You mention ‘fair value’ in reply to several comments above. What exactly is ‘fair value’ – Is it just your opinion of what this should be or is it based upon some mathematical/historical number like ROI based upon rent or some other number..??

Thanks for your comment – If that is the case, then how does one explain what happened in 2006/2007. Take Las Vegas as an example – Realtors over there used almost the exact same words that you used above. Prices crashed by 50% to 80%. Even some areas in South bay and San Jose in particular crashed by tens of percent. So my question to you really is – What is the most compelling reason for you to say the prices will only go up from here to $1000/Sq Ft in selected areas.

Love to know your viewpoint and why.how long have you owned, where have you owned, and what do you plan to do with your real estate over the next 5-10 years? If you don’t own, how old are you and do you plan to own and when. Thx

In my view the current SF market is an aberration, just like Vancouver and Toronto and Manhattan.
It happens all the time, almost everywhere on the globe, due to our inherent human herd instinct which has been with us from our caveman days.

Real estate historically has yielded an average of 10%~12% return on its gross purchase price. This is from data averaged over 200+ years from several different locations worldwide. A lower return indicates an overvalued property.

In 2009 Las Vegas properties were yielding 22% ROI as were many cities in Arizona and Florida. Today SF and Manhattan properties yield 2%~5%. In time, these returns will rise and probably yield much higher than the long term average. ‘In time’ could be few months or few years – this cannot be reliably predicted, but the trend is certain.

In my 40+ years of RE investing, I have always looked for areas where extremes are prevalent and, never once, this metric has failed me.
I have held and/or still hold investment properties in Las Vegas, Manhattan and San Francisco.

I will surely be a buyer for SF area properties, sometime in the near future.

You have an excellent blog – I may not agree with all your viewpoints but I am avid reader.

Seems like it went for $1.4 MM. Add $350k in repairs (25%!) and you’d still come out $150k over market.

Sam, it’s a small world. I actually toured that house and agree with you on it’s potential. It definitely needed an overhaul.

Do you think you should have bid higher? Was this a pure appreciation play for you? In the event that the market turned and you were forced to hold, did you feel this could have been a positive cash flow rental?

Frequent reader, first time commenter. And glad to see I connected with you this way. I have learnt a lot from this blog and wanted to say thank you.

What is your opinion concerning real estate crowdfunding sites as compared to buying and managing tangible properties such as SFH and condo? I currently work a demanding full time financial executive job and teach accounting at a local college. The last thing I want in my life is to fix leaky faucets, mow lawns on weekends and deal with late rent.

Investing in crowdfunding RE provides low minimum investments, professional management and diversity including commercial properties in great markets such as Seattle, DC,NYC and SF. Markets, I otherwise could not afford a 20% down payment on million dollar properties. Many of these investments provide 10-12% cash flow returns.

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